The disclosures herein relate generally to computer systems and more particularly to a shroud for protecting against accidental contact between expansion cards and other computer components.
With the need for more hot plugable access to computers there is a corollary need to protect exposed circuits and components, i.e. shield them, in customer access areas. Also, with faster higher power IC""s on circuit boards there is a need for improved thermal cooling. One such area is the motherboard at the hotplug PCI cards. Typically, the mechanical shielding aspect is done with a xe2x80x9cdishrackxe2x80x9d structure: plastic partitions assembled into a custom designed plastic base. To accommodate cooling requirements on the motherboard, holes are provided in the dishrack base. These large holes, typically for heatsinks, often do not allow air to flow into the heatsinks at their base (where airflow is most useful) because the plastic of the dishrack is in the way. Also, the heatsink holes provide more exposure to the motherboard for probing and falling objects, as well as, lessen the robustness and strength of the dishrack. Because there is no precision location for most heatsinks, these holes must be substantially over sized. Also, preheated air from, or to, other computer devices are allowed to mix between the motherboard IC""s and feature cards, VRMs, CPU etc.
In one approach, the dishrack base possesses a potentially severe thermal problem by blocking airflow to heatsinks on various high speed components that drive the new 64 bit 66 Mhz SCSI control chip set (Intel 1960 and two SCSI controller chips). These chips generate much more heat than previous chips that controlled the SCSI busses and they reside directly under the hotplug PCI cards. There may also be a number of parts/assemblies that lie in front of these chips: cables, connectors and card guide support structures. Also, these heatsinks are placed upon the SCSI chips by hand with no locating features.
In some present server products there has been a dishrack provided. To provide motherboard component cooling, especially heatsinks, the above-mentioned holes were put into the dishrack base. Another approach is to provide a mylar film that covers the motherboard under the PCI cards, also often provided with holes for heatsinks.
Therefore, what is needed is to provide the mechanical shielding for the motherboard that is required in the PCI hotplug area, but also to precisely control and channel cooling air to motherboard components, especially the SCSI control chip set, and to make the mechanical shielding, or insulation, more effective via a more complete coverage of the motherboard.
One embodiment, accordingly, provides a protective shroud to protect inserted cards from contacting each other and contacting the motherboard. Also, cooling is enhanced by the shroud. To this end, an apparatus includes a baseplate and a plurality of dividers mounted on the baseplate so as to extend therefrom. The dividers are substantially equally spaced apart in a substantially parallel relationship. The baseplate includes a first substantially planar section and a second substantially planar section. The first and second planar sections extend along respective first and second planes. The first plane is spaced apart from the second plane. A ventilated ramp extends between the first and second planar sections. The ramp directs an airflow path from a first side of the first planar section to a second side of the second planar section.
A principal advantage of this embodiment is that the shroud provides a means for cooling controller chips and also provides more motherboard protection than presently known shrouds.